


Safety-Blanket

by yeaka



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7633963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock tolerates Bones’ ridiculousness in Sarek’s house on New Vulcan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety-Blanket

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Gimliafanatic asked for Spones recs on [my tumblr](http://yeaka.tumblr.com/) but, as I don’t like reading, I had none. ^^; So I wrote this useless thing?
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

It’s strange, in an intangible, inconsequential way, to sleep planetside again. He’s grown used to the minute hum of the ship, barely detectable even to Vulcan ears, and to the knowledge that he’s usually suspended amidst the stars. The bed in Sarek’s house, the one specially set aside for _Spock_ in case he should ever wish to add to the finite colony, is still standard Starfleet-issue. It’s acutely more utilitarian that his childhood bed was back on Vulcan, lacking the distinct art and precise craftsmanship of his people. But it suffices, and he uses it.

He closes his eyes and wills himself not to think of the last time he was in a bed under his father’s roof, with his mother in a different room and T’Rukh arching over the horizon. He tries only to dream. Tomorrow will be trying. They arrived late tonight, essentially sent straight to bed, but in the morning, Spock will properly introduce his... “boyfriend.”

And it will doubtless be awkward, unseemly, humiliating, and a wealth of other Terran descriptions that he’ll need to be rested to deal with. A part of him hopes the captain will call them both back and the whole visit will have to be postponed, ideally indefinitely.

The rest of him knows that his father can hardly blame him for bonding with an illogical human, and there’s something vaguely... calming... about being in a grounded home with his chosen mate.

He’s half asleep, musing on such situational complexities, when he hears the door creak open. Having heard no internal alarms, he allows himself to check over his shoulder slowly enough to not completely rouse his body. Through the starlight that pours from the glass doors on the other side, a figure slips into the room.

Leonard McCoy shuts the door swiftly behind himself and creeps across the rug, posture bent absurdly in a clear attempt at minimizing the sound of his footsteps. When Leonard reaches the bed, he lifts the white covers right up and climbs in, sidling unceremoniously up to Spock and pulling the blankets right up to his neck.

Spock, recalling their earlier conversation about how inappropriate this would be here, asks, “What are you doing, doctor?”

“Sticking close to the person in the house with the most combat training,” Leonard grumbles, in his normal, irritated drawl.

Though the motivation behind such a statement is arguably more important, Spock chooses to first correct, “That would be my father.”

Leonard, in his typical fashion, ignores Spock’s statement entirely and hisses, “There’s something out there! Some damn beast was pawing at the sliding door in my room, moaning and prowling about with these giant fangs all out! Your dad’s room is on the same side as mine, so he should’ve heard it, but do you think he did a thing about it? Just because you Vulcans can mediate your way to sleep through anything doesn’t mean I’m just going to lie there while some alien monster of a furball sits three feet away, fantasizing about eating me.”

The startlight’s enough to see Leonard’s face, completely serious, but Spock squints anyway, examining the expression for signs of jest. Despite Spock’s experience at Starfleet Headquarters, Terran humour still often eludes him. But Leonard looks genuinely bothered by the prospect of being eaten by an animal that Spock’s father would indeed have heard and must therefore have deemed harmless.

Another explanation occurs to Spock, and he reasons back, “Leonard, I believe I made myself quite clear that sharing a bed in my father’s home would be highly inappropriate.”

“I know that, you green-blooded—”

“Thus, I do not appreciate you inventing excuses to infiltrate my bed.”

“What?” Leonard splutters, face pinching as though truly shocked by Spock’s accusation, which does give Spock pause, though not enough to dismiss the theory. “No! I didn’t—”

“Your denial is illogical. I have caught you, to use one of your own colloquialisms, with your hand in my cookie jar. In the future, I would ask that you simply verbalize your needs if you are unable to sleep without m—”

“Augh!” Leonard abruptly interrupts, squirming so far back in the bed that he tumbles over the edge, dragging Spock’s blankets with him. They rip right over Spock’s back to glide down over Leonard, while Spock turns to eye the dim gardens beyond the glass wall.

An adult-sized sehlat has just lumbered by and stops at the seam of Spock’s door, studiously locked. The creature opens its mouth to let out a low whine and lifts its sizeable paws to pet the glass. 

Spock’s first reaction is a spark of affection—he remembers, long ago, having a sehlat that would wail to come into his room at night and cuddle up at the end of his bed, despite his father’s disapproving lectures. It’s heartening to see that some survived the fall of their shared homeworld. The poor creature nuzzles its head against the door, and Spock, half out of nostalgia and half out of an irrational worry that wild le-matyas will have survived to prowl too, climbs off the mattress and heads for the door.

“Spock!” Leonard barks behind him, hissing quietly again as though the Sehlat will speak Federation Standard and overhear them. “Spock, don’t—”

But Spock is, technically, the commanding officer on this not-mission, and he deftly taps the code into the lock mounted against the sidewall. The door slides open, and the sehlat gratefully waddles inside, coming up to rub against Spock’s legs while he seals the door again. 

A flash of blue around the creature’s neck catches Spock’s eye—his mother had gotten something similar for his original sehlat: a Terran device meant for pets in the event of them losing their way. As I-Chaya often tried to follow Spock to school, it proved useful on a number of occasions. 

Bending down to check amidst the array of thick brown fur, Spock finds a silver pendant on the collar that reads, carved in Vulcan: _I-Chaya Two_.

“Spock,” Leonard urges again, prompting Spock to finally look over at where he’s huddled warily beyond the edge of the bed. “What the devil are you doing with that beast?”

“This ‘beast’ appears to be my father’s pet,” Spock explains calmly. Leonard’s face scrunches up, but Spock’s more than used to his boyfriend’s adverse reaction to his culture. I-Chaya Two circles around the bed as Spock settles back down on the mattress, and as soon as I-Chaya Two’s made it around the other side, Leonard hurriedly joins him, pulling the blankets away from the sehlat’s paws. Then it hops up onto the end of the bed, curling up in the haphazard mess of blankets there, and Spock assures Leonard, who looks fretfully appalled, “There is no need for concern. I-Chaya Two will not prove dangerous.”

Still staring at the sehlat, Leonard snorts, “What happened to I-Chaya One?” His pronunciation is slightly off, but Spock finds that fact bizarrely endearing and so lets it slide.

“He was my childhood pet,” Spock shares. He assumes Leonard will deduce on his own that there was no ‘One’ attached to the original creature’s name.

“Creative man, your father,” Leonard says dryly. Spock vaguely recognizes Terran sarcasm but can’t be completely sure.

Rather than continue the banter, which, with them, can prove endless, Spock tucks himself back beneath the blankets and rolls onto his side, facing out into the garden again. He can feel the new I-Chaya weighing down the bed next to his feet and finds it somewhat comforting. He’s glad, despite sehlats’ lack of sentience, that when Spock is busy on his ship, his father isn’t completely alone. 

He can feel Leonard settling back into bed behind him, pulling the blankets taut again. At least the sehlat between them forces them not to lie too closely together, or at least not their legs, which is likely necessary given their usual nightly routines. Without turning to look, Spock announces, “I will allow you to remain in my bed, as you are clearly unequipped to handle yourself alone at night.”

He isn’t surprised when Leonard promptly grumbles a slew of unintelligibly insults littered with derogatory comments towards Spock’s Vulcan heritage that he’s long since learned are covers for Leonard’s “dirty pleasures.” As much as Leonard might taunt Spock’s pointed ears, he’s lovingly caressed them enough for Spock to know the truth behind his barbed comments. He’s made an equal amount of lewd, approving comments about Spock’s green blushes when in private. He may disparage Spock’s logic now, but if Spock were not logical, he would not be himself, and Leonard _loves_ him, and thus must accept that side.

Leonard is a baffling enigma, gruffly wrapped in a particularly handsome package, and the first time I-Chaya makes a sleepy snort, Leonard sidles right up to Spock’s back, legs bent at the knees out of the way. He wraps his pajama-clad arms tightly around Spock’s middle, large hands sliding over Spock’s stomach, face pressing into the back of Spock’s neck and disrupting black hair with each new exhale. His body is unabashedly _warm_ , and Spock has to fight the urge to arch back against his chest and appreciate that full-force. 

Out of respect for his father’s house, Spock also doesn’t smile, even when Leonard mutters, vulnerably tender in their intimacy, “Good night, Spock.”

Spock returns, “Good night, doctor,” and shuts his eyes.


End file.
